There is a growing concern nowadays about the harmful effects of refrigerants that can leak into the atmosphere from refrigeration systems such as air conditioners. It has been found that harm is being caused to the ozone layer by leaking refrigerants such as Refrigerant 12 (dichlorodifluoromethane). Due to such concerns, many jurisdictions have enacted by-laws requiring persons who service refrigeration systems to shut down a system if a leak is suspected. The by-laws typically require that the system cannot be reactivated until the leak is discovered and repaired.
The detection of a leak in split system air conditioners can be particularly difficult. This is because the condenser for such air conditioners is located outdoors where a leaking refrigerant tends to become quickly dissipated into the atmosphere. Conventional leak detectors (eg. electronic or Halide detectors) that collect and analyze air samples from the air surrounding the air conditioner are of little use outdoors since the refrigerant tends to be dissipated before a sufficient amount of leaked refrigerant can be collected for analysis in an air sample. As a result, more time consuming methods for detecting leaks in such air conditioners must be used. For instance, sections of the condenser pipes could be covered with a soap film and searched for subsequent bubbles indicating leaks. When a lengthy network of condenser pipes must be checked, such traditional methods can be quite time consuming. Furthermore, the leak may end up not being located at the condenser at all, but instead at another portion of the refrigerant circuit (e.g. the evaporator located indoors). As a consequence, a lot of time can be wasted by a service person searching in the wrong area of the air conditioning system.
What is needed is a means for a service person to quickly narrow down whether a refrigerant is leaking from an outdoor condenser of a split system air conditioner.